Tempe man sentenced to 30 months in federal firearms case

A Tempe man was sentenced to 30 months in prison after a federal jury found him guilty of two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.

Ryan Patrick Michell, 39, of Tempe, was sentenced on Feb. 11, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona. Mitchell was previously convicted of three felonies, which prohibited him from possessing firearms.

Mitchell was sentenced to 30 months on each count, but a judge ordered those terms to be served concurrent to each other, effectively making it a 30-month term. He also was ordered to three years supervised probation after his release.

He was found guilty of the charges on Sept. 27, officials said.

The FBI began investigating Michell in October 2017, after an attempted suspicious purchase of potassium cyanide from an online marketplace, officials said. That led authorities to discover his involvement with the firearms.

Officials said testimony at trial showed that on Nov. 27, 2017, Michell sold a Norinco SKS 7.62x39 rifle, along with four high-capacity round magazines and 100 rounds of ammunition to a buyer on backpage.com.

On Dec. 1, 2017, the U.S. District Attorney's Office in Arizona said, the FBI served a search warrant on Michell’s Phoenix home where they found four rounds of .338 Lapua ammunition. In a probable cause statement, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the ammunition was manufactured in Finland.

According to the probable cause statement, agents also found more than 50 empty cartridges from various types of firearms inside the flatbed of Michell's truck.

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